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Tag: healthcare management

Technology has impacted every walk of our lives. The last few years have seen revolutionary technological advancements. From landline telephones to smartphones, from feature phones to iPhones, from slow internet connections to today’s 4G connections, technology has phenomenally transformed our lives. The way we read news on mobile, interact with friends and family members through social networking sites, do online shopping – technology has changed the way we live our lives.

Similar to other industries, the healthcare industry also is seeing rapid changes owing to the innovations in medical devices and software. Digital technologies are changing the way care is administered to patients and also the way healthcare organisations function. While there is a growth in the adoption of healthcare technologies by health providers, there is also displeasure amongst the doctors about the available healthcare technologies. It is not that doctors are not used to using latest technologies – they are the ones who have been using the latest technologies since a long time – right from MRI machines, X-Ray machines, or the various hospital instruments, they are well versed with the use of technology. Then what is wrong with today’s healthcare IT solutions?

Research shows that hospital staff spends on an average 5 hours a day entering patients’ data into electronic health records (EHRs). Hospitals are needing to hire more staff for conducting data work. A large chunk of the hospital income is being spent on keeping up with technological advancements and maintaining a task force for it. This is a completely counter-intuitive scenario. When the technology is supposed to reduce time and efforts and enhance the patient care, what is making it not deliver on its promise?

Here is our take why doctors could be hating the healthcare IT solutions available to them –

Mobility

Most of the times, doctors are on the move. From hospitals rounds, OPDs, to moving from one clinic to the other – they are hardly at their desk. The biggest drawback of many of the available healthcare IT solutions is their stationary nature. The doctors are required to input data regarding their patients after returning to their desks. With so many patients in the hospital and with an equal number of them visiting daily in the OPD, it becomes tasking to remember, recollect and retain the accurate information for each of the patients. Doctors need a solution which can allow them to access patient information anytime, anywhere, right from their mobile devices.

Non-Intuitive Interface

Some of the most crucial duties of doctors include attending to emergencies, looking after inpatients, medical floors, and attending intensive care units. What doctors need a solution which can provide them quick and easy access to patient data, reduce the costs of operations, reduce human errors and help in reliable prescriptions.

Doctors need a system which can allow them to enter data with a few clicks or drag and drop. They need a system which is extremely easy to use, works on their mobile phones or tablets, is designed “for doctors”. In many cases, the health IT solutions do not consider the working patterns of the doctors and are designed in a very complex fashion.

Non-Integrated Systems

Hospitals and clinics generate a humongous amount of data – patient records, inventory records, data from medical stores and labs, and so on. While technology has entered hospitals and some records are being maintained through computers instead of paper records, all the systems still work in silos. There is no integration of this information. This further adds to the woes of the doctors and the medical staff working in the hospitals and clinics. A major chunk of their medical time is invested in maintaining, finding, or sorting the data. Having a solution which integrates various aspects of the healthcare ecosystem will immensely help the medical fraternity as it can give them quick access to all the required information.

Complex Workflows

Each hospital and clinic follows specific workflows. Just because they are adopting a particular technology does not mean that the hospitals will change their workflows. The health IT solution should be flexible and adaptable to the hospital’s specific workflows. It needs to allow the creation of custom workflows. Since no two doctors think alike, each doctor follows a specific style of working, a specific pattern, and processes the information in a particular way. When the IT systems force all the doctors to follow the same pattern, the doctors don’t appreciate it and it makes them unproductive.

Hard to Manage

The doctors or the staff at the healthcare organisation are not necessarily equipped to handle complex hardware and software. Handling software failures or hardware updates is a daunting task for them. Hospitals also do not want to build and manage their own IT teams to maintain and upgrade their IT systems. They need solutions which can be accessed via the web, do not require any efforts on their part to upgrade or maintain, and do not need any capital investment in hardware or software. That’s where the latest cloud-based solutions are gaining popularity amongst the doctors and hospitals.

Time is of the essence for doctors, and they need to take very crucial decisions within a very short time. We, at Mars Plus believe that technology should aid the doctors in their decision-making, reduce their time and efforts, help them spend more time with their patients, reduce their costs and overheads, and improve the overall patient care. With that in mind, we have designed a very user-friendly and fully-integrated healthcare ecosystem – check it out at www.marspls.com.

The Indian healthcare industry is very fragmented. The whole ecosystem is largely manual and paper-based. Patients, today, have to go through a lot of hassles and stages to get a proper medical care. This leads them to be frustrated and irritated owing to factors such as long wait times, specialized physicians that are not easy to get hold of, and a medical system that is not easily accessible. The overall healthcare system in our country is at a very unorganized level. Patients need to take care of all documentation and records such as reports, x-rays, prescriptions, notes from doctors etc. manually and be responsible for all of them. This is a result of the fact that we do not have one integrated platform where all the information and content can be readily available and easily accessed by patients, doctors, physicians and anyone else who may be involved in the process of the treatment.

How can an integrated healthcare experience benefit the patients?

However, in recent years, the face of healthcare industry is changing and people are coming up with more healthcare options than we have ever been exposed to. India’s healthcare system is working towards technology-enabled collaborations to incorporate advanced techniques and ideas in the processes. These introductions aim towards creating a fully integrated healthcare system which will

Provide comprehensive solutions to all the individual entities such as patients, doctors, physicians, clinics, hospitals, laboratories, and medical stores.

The application and use of such a system will enable faster and more efficient communication between patients and doctors and make the entire system more smooth.

The use of cloud-based and mobile-based tools for storage and access of information will make them easily accessible at any time from any device. Such an experience is what can be defined as an integrated healthcare experience.

Better patient care at lower costs

Integrated care aims at taking a more comprehensive approach offering the patients with higher-quality and more efficient care that better meets their needs.

Along with that, it also tries to reduce the costs involved in the treatment by analysing the overall situation and taking the right steps at the right time. It can work around different approaches but the ultimate aim is to provide the patients with what is best for them.

In the case of patients suffering from chronic diseases, integrated care works towards creating a symbiosis between primary and secondary care to ensure more appropriate use of health care resources. It aims towards ensuring the availability of all types of services such as physicians, specialists, nutritionists and other health professionals for patients on a single platform.

With an integrated system, patients will be able to undergo diagnostic tests and get prescriptions filled in one go. They will be able to store a complete health history of themselves as well as their families online, thus avoiding the hassle of preserving physical documents.

Smooth communication between doctors, caregivers and patients and optimised costs

Another feat integrated care works towards achieving is to improve communication between a wider range of services. This facility will allow the patients who have undergone a treatment or surgery at a hospital to get discharged at an earlier time than the usual. They will then be provided with follow-up services and appropriate care. The aim is to reduce the hospital stay once the patients no longer require close treatment, thus reducing costs and optimising the overall process.

Patient Finance and Insurance Management

Patients will be also able to keep track of their healthcare finance management by quickly accessing their insurance credentials, insurance details, reimbursement that can be claimed through their insurance by accessing all the information on their mobile phones.

Self care

Through access to all the healthcare analytics data, the patients will be able to decrease the risk of costly emergency interventions and thus reduce the chances of death. The insights provided by the integrated healthcare management system will allow the patients to keep a constant check on their health without having to visit your doctor each time. Old patients suffering from chronic diseases will be able to easily track their medications, get medication reminders, and reduce the chances of wrong medications.

While healthcare industry has developed a lot in the recent years and has seen many technological transformations, there is always scope to develop the existing services and aim at achieving higher levels of integration. Integrated healthcare systems provide a full continuum of services in a user-friendly manner, creating a one-stop environment to eliminate the cost of intermediaries, promote wellness, and improve overall health outcomes.